


Fire

by GenesisArclite



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fear of Death, Friendship/Love, Post-Canon, Romantic Angst, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 07:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15944618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GenesisArclite/pseuds/GenesisArclite
Summary: Adam is severely injured during an op gone horribly wrong in Prague. Aria doesn't take the near-death of the man she loves very well at all.





	Fire

Aria hadn’t been tagged to accompany the tiny group of three CT agents to the outskirts of Prague as they pursued a Dvali convoy smuggling weapons out of the city. Those left behind had looked either sullen or relieved – sometimes both at once, it seemed – and she had tried to reassure herself it had been for the best. Mac, Adam, and one other she couldn’t remember the name of had been sent instead, with Miller being quite stern about his decision. It had been only a week since the London op, and yet she felt as though it had been _weeks_. She hadn’t yet been put out on field duty... but then, she was hardly the only one, and needed to focus on that.

Adam had come back from that op visibly shaken, though no one had said or done anything about it. His visit to Delara had been disturbingly short, and he had walked out looking no better, brow deeply furrowed, strides hard as steel. Her worry had felt like an ember caught in the coils of her intestines, giving her the mad _need_ to reach out for him and land a hand on his arm. She hadn’t, but she had politely voiced her concern. His reaction had at first been silence, then reassurance.

Reassurance she didn’t believe. Something had happened. He wasn’t okay.

Now he had been sent out on another mission. During the week since the end of that op, he had been unusually quiet – just thoughtful, probably, but... that ember in her gut...

The words on the screen were meaningless points of light and color, blurring before her exhausted eyes.

It was pointless to feel like this. Especially for _him_.

But Aria wasn’t stupid enough to try denying the truth. Her feelings for Adam were complex at best, tangled up in a confusing web of comradely concern, simple fondness, and romantic affection, all wrapped around a knot of desire she could no longer ignore. There were whispers around her, ones she heard spoken in darkness when they thought she couldn’t hear, of her obvious crush on him, but they were all lighthearted. Good. It was best never to let on how she _really_ felt, not when she was finally working under MacReady.

Adam himself was complicated, a mess of contradictions she could never make sense of. He was a scary-looking soldier chock-full of military-grade, weaponized augmentations, yet he was always calm, and, to her, kind. Other agents were nervous around him, yet she didn’t fear him at all. He had been sent on multiple ops, yet always returned with zero casualties, and often without ever even being _seen_. She didn’t know him as much as she would like, yet what little tidbits he granted her felt like tiny gifts gleaned from a heart she couldn’t see.

It was wrong, of course, to take his willingness to talk to her, or his encouraging words, always spoken in that same, gentle tone, as anything other than a fellow agent keeping a teammate propped up. It could even be for practical reasons – if she was going to watch his back, he needed her at her best. She wasn’t even sure he considered her a friend at all, and it was hard to even consider the traditional definition, given that he didn’t let anyone in, something that even Delara had told her during a brief session checking on her stress levels.

Yet... she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t help _hoping_ there was more to his inscrutable kindness.

The sound of frantic voices shook her out of her attempts to focus on the screen. They were muffled by her distance from the entry to the Counterterrorism unit – she had been placed a few seats away from Adam’s corner, facing the entrance, as she had requested not having her back to an open door – and forced her to stand and move out onto the walkway. Within a moment, over the din, she pinpointed the source: Mac and another agent, along with a man dressed in the uniform of an infirmary worker, half-supporting and half-carrying a body between them.

Aria squinted, trying to make out who it was. When she realized the other agent wasn’t Adam, though, ice water replaced her blood, and her heart practically leapt into her throat.

It only took another moment to recognize the shock of thick, dark hair, and the distinct design of the combat vest he wore, the only agent she knew of to wear so little armor, just because he didn’t need it. Only when the railing creaked did she realize her artificial hand had begun to crush it; she snatched it back as if scalded, then stared without seeing until they had moved him into the infirmary and allowed the door to slide shut.

Her stomach twisted itself into a mass of knots, and she reeled back, hands patting at her abdomen, if only because she didn’t know what else to do with them.

The bombing at Ruzicka Station had sent the Prague branch into chaos. Reports pouring in, phones ringing endlessly, and casualty lists constantly being updated. Six agents had been lost that day – a devastating enough blow – but when she had learned that Adam had been there, the sheer, bitter horror that had nearly crushed her heart had been all the confirmation she needed of how she really felt about him. No one could tell her he was alive or dead, and she stopped asking soon after, left to stand shaking at her desk as the casualties continued to climb.

This was worse. This didn’t involve Miller, in his strange wisdom, personally coming to her and assuring her Adam was fine and unharmed. She had now witnessed the single toughest agent in their branch unable to bear his own weight and rushed into the infirmary to be cared for by the resident doctor.

Aria rubbed her hands over her face. She needed to stay where she was. If she tried to see what was going on, she could get in the way, underfoot, cause problems. Adam needed to be okay. He _had_ to be okay.

But the floor swayed, and she went back to the railing, feeling as though she would pitch over. She tried to recall what he looked like coming in, and realized with a start that there had been blood. Not just a little, either – a _lot_ of blood, streaking the armor and dulling the shine of his augs, smeared across his skin, spattered on his shirt.

The sound in her throat – keening, sharp as a knife – was one she hadn’t uttered in _years_. The very thought of losing him made her feel sick. Too many people needed him alive. He was too good of an agent to lose. Without being able to see him with her own eyes, her mind went wild with possibilities.

But if she went down there, she would get in the way, and he could die because of her interference. And even beyond that, petty as it was to consider right then, people would _know_. They would _know_ her affection had gone far beyond a girlish crush, and if he lived, it could ruin them _both_.

Hot tears seeped from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks; she gritted her teeth and hurriedly wiped them away, but just as soon as she had gotten rid of them, they were replaced.

The sound of Miller raising his voice in the familiar pitch of authority caught her attention, but it wasn’t enough to stifle the sickness digging its claws into her heart. It was stupid, _stupid_ to feel this way, _stupid_ to pine away for a man who never gave her more than the minimum of what she needed from him, who put up with her well-meaning invasions of his Infolink, or tossing out a greeting he usually just... nodded back at.

More tears. He was _dying_.

Then Miller was looking at her, blue-gray eyes fixed on hers and all too keen, and she didn’t care anymore, too sick to her stomach, too terrified of the man she loved slipping away, and didn’t bother to stop the tears that descended. “Miller, I’m sorry, I just– I heard– I heard–”

But the Director of Task Force 29’s Prague branch, the stern, all-business leader who never so much as flinched in the face of death or danger, didn’t look surprised, or upset. Instead, his eyes were thick with feeling, _understanding_ , and when he moved closer to her and laid a hand on her shoulder, she almost broke down.

He knew already. He had known from the moment he had introduced her to Adam Jensen that she had been attracted to the knight-like Aug, and she was certainly making no secret of it now.

“He was hurt pretty bad. Shrapnel, as I hear – a lot of it. Why don’t you go see what’s going on?”

“I’ll get in the way.” Her voice shook.

“As long as you stay back, I doubt Jennifer will mind. Just don’t get underfoot and do as she says, but you’ll make yourself sick if you stay here instead of going down there.” A pause, then, “You already look pale. Maybe the infirmary is the best place for you regardless, Miss Argento.”

The sound of her own heart in her ears nearly drowned him out, but she heard enough to know what he meant. No matter what he thought of the rumors, or her, he knew what she needed to hear _now_. “Yes, sir,” she choked out, again wiping away the tears with angry hands. She hated being seen like this.

But Miller just gently squeezed her shoulder, looked at her a moment, and walked away.

Rubbing her cheeks to make the ruddiness a little less obvious, she descended to the bottom floor, her legs shaking and feeling totally disconnected from the rest of her. A few glances were tossed her way, and she battled back any further tears as she half-stumbled – or so it felt – her way to the infirmary door. It slid open at a touch of the button beside it, giving her a view into the controlled chaos inside.

Across the room, Jennifer Phillips, the facility doctor, stood over a gurney, accompanied by a nurse. Both of them were in fatigues, and both were examining the body in front of them – Adam, flat on his back, streaked in blood, but he was _alive_ , though writhing weakly. The combination of knowing he still lived and seeing him so badly hurt nearly took her knees out from under her, and only by bracing herself did she stay upright.

The doctor and the nurse seemingly finished their examination, now cleaning up the wounds he had sustained all over his body, their forms obscuring her view. Though her vision blurred and her throat tightened until she couldn’t even swallow, she moved deeper into the room, still keeping her distance.

For a few minutes, it seemed that neither of them noticed her, too busy practically drenching him in antiseptic and other fluids she didn’t recognize. Then came more movement, more things she didn’t recognize, and the doctor turned in her direction, face tight with pure concentration.

Aria nearly bolted from the room, but even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t quite manage it, her knees too weak to let her move all that quickly. He still wasn’t _okay_.

 _Oh, Adam... please, please don’t die. Please be okay_.

Phillips looked up at her rather abruptly, and for a moment, her expression softened. “Aria, I can guess why you’re here. We won’t know much for a while. We gotta get the shrapnel out before we can get to work fixing him up.”

Aria swallowed, and her tongue didn’t work right when she said, “Is he– is he gonna–”

“It’s too early to tell, Aria.”

She could have cried openly then out of raw fear, if dignity and discipline hadn’t kept her from it. “Let me... know.”

Phillips looked her in the eye. “Of course.”

Aria stepped back, toward the door, but couldn’t take her eyes off the man on the gurney. With most of the blood washed away, she could see the entry points for shrapnel, as well as cuts and fresh bruises she knew couldn’t have been caused by a mere blast. His shirt was still on, no doubt out of necessity, but stained with dried blood and pinned to his body in places by chunks of metal she recognized all too well. She just kept standing stupidly by the door. Now was not the time, not even with her good intentions, to invade his space, not when someone far more knowledgeable tended to him.

Instead, she moved to the side, to the cabinets full of basic medications, and found one for nausea that specifically did not interact with Neuropozyne, then downed the smallest effective dose and put it right back. It coiled in her stomach and felt like being gouged by needles all the way down, but it settled her roiling insides.

More tears came; she angrily cleared them away.

It was nothing more than masochism that kept her pining away for him, nothing more than childish adoration that kept her relishing every _moment_ she got to spend in his presence, and yet, the fear coiling in her belly could not be tied to either of those. It cut too deep and hurt too much. It was the very thing that kept her confessions at bay, that kept her at arm’s length even when she longed for more, than kept her respectful and distant.

He might never know how she really felt about him, but most importantly, _he was dying_.

She maintained her dignity long enough to make it to the bathroom, shutting herself in one of the stalls, before completely breaking down for a few insane seconds. The man she loved and wanted to know so badly that it burned like fire in her heart was _dying_ , and even if he survived, he would be hurt and out of commission for at _least_ a few days.

She slapped her cheeks and wiped away the tears, fighting to gain control over her breathing even as it came in fits. What right did _she_ have to cry over him? How many other people in the world cared for him? What if there already existed a woman in his life that waited and worried somewhere outside these walls? How selfish could she be, hurting and angry over a man who didn’t seem to even known what to _do_ with her?

Her nails bit into her palm, before she again slapped at her cheeks, then scrubbed at the skin, before exiting the stall and splashing her face with cold water. In the mirror, the undignified face of Aria Argento glowered back at her, unsightly red spots beneath her eyes and veins visible in the scelera.

Choking back her emotions, she looked at the sink. After a minute, she managed to stop the tears entirely.

The door to the bathroom swung open and bumped the stop on the wall. Heels clicked on the hard floor; she looked up to see a familiar head of dark brown hair and large, long-lashed eyes looking at her. “Aria?” Delara’s eyes widened slightly, and she stopped dead in her tracks. “Aria, what’s wrong? You’ve been crying.”

“Yeah?” She hadn’t meant it to come out so sharply. “I’m fine now.”

Delara frowned. “I don’t believe you.” Before Aria could speak, some sort of understanding came to the other woman’s face. “It’s Adam, isn’t it? He was brought in, badly injured. I was given the short version on his way in, just in case I need to... talk to him after.”

Her throat tightened. “It’s another agent. Of course I’m worried, you know?”

“Don’t try to lie to the psychologist. You wouldn’t be here, having cried yourself out, if you didn’t care.”

It tightened further. “It’s selfish.”

Something she didn’t recognize flitted across Delara’s face. “Aria... no. He’s a colleague, a teammate, and a friend. It is no bad thing to cry for someone you clearly care about.”

She struggled to rein in her emotions. “But... but he’s hurt and–”

“And you cry because you don’t want him to die, right? You don’t like seeing him hurt. That’s not selfish, Aria – that’s human. It’s normal. Don’t be ashamed.”

She said before she could stop herself, “He’s not a _friend_.”

A long pause followed her words, giving herself enough time to pick up the scattered pieces of her emotions and snap them back together. Delara kept standing there, looking thoughtful, before she said, “Adam isn’t the friendliest person, and he doesn’t talk to anyone very much, but he’s always made a point of coming to see you, and you’ve talked at length before. For someone of his personality type, that’s... a big deal.”

Aria stared at her. “What...”

“I think he’ll be fine. Adam is tougher than he looks.” She smiled softly. “When he’s awake, you should go see him. I think he’ll appreciate seeing a friendly face after trauma like that.”

Her tongue knotted in her mouth. “I... I don’t... he...”

“Doctor-patient confidentiality and all, but I... think you’d be surprised.”

Aria looked at the floor. “I can’t think,” she said, but it came out as a traitorous whisper.

“I wouldn’t expect you to be able to. Go outside and clear your head for a few, or just... tell Miller you need to go home for a while. I’m sure he’d understand. If you want, I can get an excuse for you, give you a... reason to leave the premises until Adam is taken care of and you can see him.”

“No, no, that...” Aria sucked in a breath, roping her emotions and pulling them, struggling and screaming, closer. “No, I’ve got a job to do, and I can do it. I have to. Duty calls and... and all.”

“This is different.” Delara’s voice was firm. “It’s one thing to be out on the battlefield and needing to keep your focus on a life-or-death situation. In that case, I would _expect_ you to pry your mind off this and, you know, try to focus on staying alive and keeping your team alive. Here... it’s different. In these walls, you’re safe. Believe it or not, there’s nothing pressing for your attention, and... Adam is in bad shape. He’s one of our best, and you obviously ca–”

“Delara,” she interjected softly.

The other woman’s brown eyes softened with a twinge of sympathy. “All I’m trying to say is, if you’re emotionally compromised, even for a while, letting an agent off the hook is actually good practice. Miller will either understand, or I’ll _make_ him understand. Either way, take care of yourself, Aria. You’re doing well, and right now, you don’t need your stress levels going back up, do you?”

Despite knowing Delara had a point, Aria couldn’t acquiesce. “I’ll be fine,” she said firmly.

“I’d think you would want to listen to the psychologist,” Delara told her. “Becoming emotionally compromised affects judgment, which is of course common sense, but it can affect a number of other things, as well. Chemical reactions in the body, negative behaviors... you know.” She nodded once. “I know you’re trying to keep your... let’s just say ‘affection’ for Adam to yourself, and you’re doing okay, but all doubts will be removed if you continue.”

Aria swallowed and considered. She didn’t even want _him_ to know how she felt. Coworkers? Even worse.

_He’s dying. Does it really matter?_

She opened and closed her mouth.

_But what if he lives?_

“Alright, Delara. I’ll see if I can just... walk away for a little while.”

“Good. I’ll deal with anyone who questions it.”

Aria looked at her, intrigued by the sudden sternness in the other woman’s tone, but just as quickly as it’d come, it faded, leaving only Delara’s sympathetic smile. Focusing on keeping her thoughts away from anything troubling, she patted cold water on her cheeks and rinsed her eyes to get rid of the redness, then left the bathroom while simultaneously straightening her uniform. While a few curious eyes looked her way, no one else seemed seem to care.

Calling on Marine discipline, she started to go back upstairs, then stopped and looked at the infirmary. The frosted windows made it difficult to see inside, and if she got too much closer...

Biting the inside of her lip and fighting her bubble of fear, she continued upstairs.

For the next three hours, until afternoon faded into evening and the day shift had long since left, Aria sat at her terminal. At first, she tried to work, but the concept soon became hopeless, and before long, she had slumped back in her seat and taken to staring blankly in the general direction of her terminal screen. The only image that flitted through her mind was Adam’s bleeding body, prone on the gurney, and the uncertainty of his fate.

She didn’t know him as much as she would like. They had gone to the shooting range a few times together and made quiet, friendly chitchat – hard to do with him, but once he got going, he could keep talking for a long while – and of course, there had been all the times he had stopped by her desk on the way in from an op. While it was hard to get much of anything out of him, he could still carry on a conversation, at length, without issue, never deviating from that soft, friendly tone he always used with her. He had even given her the excess Neuropozyne he kept in his pockets, refusing to take it back and assuring her it was better she had it for now.

Moments like those were what had forced her down a familiar flow – attraction first, then adoration, always from afar, then shoving that aside for the desire to get to know him.

And as she picked scraps out of the mystery box of Adam Jensen, platonic desire had mingled with girlish adoration. From that had been birthed a new sensation that had, on quiet nights when she had nothing to occupy her mind, tormented her with wishes and feelings she kept trying to tell herself would be pointless to ever reveal.

And if he died... oh, if he _died_ now...

Unwanted tears again choked her and scraped fiery talons at the backs of her eyes; she hissed softly and wiped them away before folding her arms close to her chest.

The constant tug of war between her rationalizing that he simply wouldn’t want her and the ache of longing always made her feel as though she were being slowly pried apart. It wouldn’t be so bad if she weren’t a colleague, having to work right alongside him every single day. It wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t... _there_. All the time. Talking to her. Looking at her. Standing a hair too close. Working a heartbeat away.

Her fingers curled against her ribs. _Please be okay_. _Please don’t die_.

No one bothered her as she waited anxiously, faintly aware of the day shift filtering out and eventually leaving her alone but for a handful of agents upstairs. When she blinked back into awareness, she heard the ventilation system cycling, the sound of computer fans whispering in the quiet, the distant whir of high-capacity hard drives, and a few people milling about. She stood, her emotions spent, and staggered on stiff legs to the rail.

The ground floor was deserted, and even all the televisions were off. Desk lamps had gone dark, while side offices remained lit, their windows darkened and doors closed.

The infirmary was still brightly lit, and looking at it sent a chilly prickle down her spine. Why hadn’t Phillips contacted her yet? Maybe Adam had been _very_ badly hurt, necessitating more extensive surgery. Maybe they had to move him out of the facility entirely to an above-ground hospital that could care for Augs... though their ability to didn’t always meant they _wanted_ to. Or maybe, more likely, she’d simply forgotten.

She rubbed her eyes, suddenly exhausted. Her body cried out for sleep.

Walking back to her terminal, she finished her work and closed it out, then locked it and stood, pulling on her jacket and zipping it closed. While the facility always hovered around seventy degrees, Prague was currently enjoying a cold snap, in the low thirties, which was just enough to nip unpleasantly at her skin.

As she moved back out into the open, the infirmary door slid open, and out came the nurse from earlier. He had been looking down at a tablet at first, but now he raised his gaze in her direction. After a moment, he focused on her, then raised a hand and waved it toward him.

Aria didn’t even care if they hadn’t been expecting her to still be there, descending the stairs as quickly as she dared and half-jogging toward him. The nurse – she didn’t know his name, or couldn’t remember – didn’t look worried, or maybe he was just putting on a stoic face. She latched onto it regardless, clinging to it like a lifeline, hoping it meant that Adam was actually still okay.

He didn’t say anything as she passed, and as she entered the room and the scent of disinfectants filled her nostrils, she suddenly stopped, fingers curling tight against her palms.

Across the room, Adam still lay on the gurney, flat on his back, arms settled across his stomach. The shirt was gone and nowhere to be seen immediately, while he had been changed into looser-fitting trousers made of the simple material of hospital gowns. For a moment, as she moved closer, she wondered why his upper body had been left bare before her brain finally registered strips of white affixed to various locations.

She stopped a good twenty feet away, clutching her hands to her chest. Where his metal arms fused with his organic torso, the augs had been pitted and scarred, while his skin had bruised and gone pale. More strips of bandages had been applied quite liberally across his chest and down his left side, while his right seemed untouched – a blast, she reasoned, that had been close enough to only really injure one half of his body.

“Richards, go mix for me,” came Jennifer’s soft voice, just before she moved into view from the dispensary. Dressed in what Aria assumed were fresh scrubs, brown-blonde hair pulled up tight and amber eyes meeting hers, she looked tired, but lacked any obvious stress. “I’m glad you’re still here, Aria. I was just about to call you.”

Aria felt herself trembling. “He’s okay?”

“He’s asleep.” Jennifer looked sidelong at him. “But he’s okay. Wasn’t in critical condition, but had some nasty damage to his augs and organic bits. Got all the shrapnel out and patched him up. His Sentinel system will work on closing the wounds now.” Jennifer’s Irish twang sounded soothing, easing the stress out of her own body. The other woman had a decade on her and twenty-three years of marriage under her belt, and that, combined with mothering three kids and being a doctor for nearly three decades, had given her an excellent bedside manner. “Anythin’ that’s left needs to go to an Aug specialist, but for now, he’s in the clear. Injured, but okay.”

Aria’s throat constricted, and tears of relief prickled at the backs of her eyes. “Okay. I... I can sleep now.”

Jennifer raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you wanna see him?”

“I can see him from here,” she said firmly.

“Aria, you’re his one friend. Go see him.”

At those words, she just stared at the doctor, but Jennifer just lifted a tablet that had been dangling at her side and moved away toward her station, leaving Aria functionally alone with Adam. Her nerves immediately frayed; she looked over at him, wondering how appropriate this was, before moving closer to stand an arm’s length away. She clutched her arms close to her chest and looked down at him.

Up close, he looked even worse, one side of his face mottled with tiny bruises. Smaller bandages covered what she could only assume were lacerations from the blast. While everything seemed intact, he still seemed worse for wear, and the sight of him so injured made her stomach twist itself into a knot.

When she forced herself to look past the injuries, she brought into focus a man who still frowned slightly in his sleep, head turned slightly toward her and a lock of hair dangling over his forehead. The shields normally covering his eyes were down at the moment, allowing her to see what was beneath for the first time – thick, dark lashes ringing normal-looking eyelids, deep-set beneath an angular brow bone, his left eye bearing the faint mark of a long-healed scar.

Not wanting to wake him, she reminded herself that she needed to go home and leave Adam to continue healing. He hadn’t been put _under_ , at least, which she assumed was a good sign.

Groaning softly under her breath, she turned away, but her elbow bumped something behind her, rattling what sounded like an assortment of medical instruments. It wasn’t all that loud, but in the quiet, it might as well have been an entire cabinet of expensive glassware shattering across the floor.

Not to her surprise, the man on the gurney stirred, and his eyes flicked open.

Aria split her attention between doing her best to keep the guilt off her face and allowing herself to be caught up in the first-time moment of seeing his eyes uncovered. They were augmented, which she already knew, and dark, with a thin ring of gold surrounding the synthetic pupil. Combined with the shield sheaths, dark brows, and thick lashes, she found it very, embarrassingly difficult to look away, and her cheeks grew warm.

“Sorry, Adam,” she mumbled. “I... I didn’t mean to...” Forcing herself to focus on her mess, she quickly scanned the items she’d disturbed. None were broken or beyond more than a little unsettled, so she turned her attention back. “Go back to sleep. I was just leaving.”

Though his law enforcement training had likely kicked him awake at the sound, he still had to blink the haze of sleep away. “Hey, Aria. How long you been here?”

“Um... just a minute or two. Like I said, I was just leaving.”

Again, he blinked. “Already?”

Something in his tone gave her pause, and she turned her body toward him fully, puzzled. He still looked groggy, but his eyes were fixed on hers, and there was a notch in his brow that tugged at her heart. “Well, you should rest, and really, I probably shouldn’t be here. I’m off duty, anyway.”

Adam stared at her for a long moment, then away, toward the ceiling. “I get that.” Under the coat of stoicism, she sensed a thick layer of emotion that seemed to call to her heart – or maybe she was just imagining it. As she moved to turn away again, though, he added, quietly, “You came to see me, huh?”

“I...” She stopped, thinking of how many times already she had openly worried about him. Even if he had no idea how she really felt, he had to have some suspicion about her anyway. “I... I was worried.”

He looked back at her. “You always worry.”

“Yeah, well... it’s my thing. Now, get some sleep, please? You need it.”

The furrow in his brow deepened a little. “Don’t remember much after the blast, but if you’re... here, I must be... I must be safe. Keep getting close to death, keep not dying. World keeps wanting me gone, and it doesn’t happen. Somebody must like me, huh?”

Taking a tentative step closer, she said, “Guess so.”

His lips curved into the softest smile she’d yet seen. The sight of it sent a jolt of something warm and pleasant down her spine. “Checking on a teammate?” The words strung together a little, betraying his exhaustion and the haze of painkillers, his voice a little huskier than usual, but his tone remained gentle and warm. “Sure you don’t wanna say anything else?”

Well, if he was going to be like _that_... “I’m really glad you’re okay, Adam. It was... scary, seeing you... dragged in here.”

“Yeah, bet so. You been okay while I was out?”

The sliver of genuine concern in his words broke down what little remaining stoicism she had left. “I was scared,” she told him, hugging her arms close. “I kept thinking about Ruzicka, or the Harvester, or Golem City, and I...”

A pause, then, “I’m alright.”

She looked at him, meeting his eyes, and feeling as if she’d been given some great gift just by being allowed to see them. He could have put them back up by now, but for some reason – exhaustion, curiosity, or something else – he now chose to keep them down and meet her on a human level he usually denied.

“Good. I... I need to go, but... I’ll come back when you’re awake and, you know, more you, okay?”

A sleepy, slow blink, then his dark eyes meeting hers once more. They reached for her, filled with feeling she didn’t understand, but even as she longed to move closer, she didn’t. Exhausted and addled by undoubtedly powerful painkillers, he couldn’t make sound judgment. Right now, he seemed vulnerable, and tomorrow, or whenever he was well enough to be off the medication, he would be back to his usual self, holding her at arm’s length, and she would have to apologize for intruding where she wasn’t wanted.

“Hope so,” he said, and his eyes slowly closed. Almost immediately, she saw him drift into a doze.

Aria moved away. It had to be the painkillers talking, the haze of medication and sleep that made him smile like she mattered to him as more than a teammate.

As she passed Jennifer, the doctor said, “You definitely should come back. It’s always good when a friend cares enough to come by when you’re out of commission.”

She bit the inside of her lip, then said, “Was it... you know, wrong of me?”

“What? Coming here when he’s asleep?”

“Yeah.” She looked at the floor. “Seems... inappropriate.”

When the doctor didn’t immediately respond, Aria looked at her, only to find her gazing back. “You need to figure these things out for yourself, you know. You _could_ try talking to him once in a while.” When she opened her mouth, Jennifer held up a finger. “I can’t say more. It’s up to him. But trust me when I _do_ say, you did nothing wrong.”

She wanted to ask for clarification, but knew the other woman would actually do as she said and not give her anything else, so she nodded and went on her way.

Things would be back to normal in a week, she knew. He might not even _remember_ doing what he did tonight, his mind too clouded from pain, medication, and exhaustion. Adam was forever inscrutable to her, keeping her at arm’s length just like he did everyone else, and the little smiles and soft tone were probably just out of politeness.

But as she left the branch, she knew she was lying to herself. Adam had begun their relationship exactly like that, but over time, she had moved closer. He didn’t smile at anyone else. He was always calm and polite, but she didn’t know anyone else he spoke to the way he did her. And even medication and exhaustion couldn’t completely explain away the warmth he had shown her in the few moments he had been awake.

All of that, of course, would have to wait. Perhaps one day, she could know the whole truth. But not now, and not soon.

For now, he was just “Adam”, a teammate who meant more to her than was probably appropriate.

And she would just have to keep it to herself.


End file.
